By Francisco Alvarado, FloridaBulldog.orgd
Homestead’s police chief demoted and briefly suspended a city detective who an internal investigation found began an intimate relationship with an alleged crime victim and later arrested her ex-boyfriend after consulting her about its timing.
Prosecutors later dropped the case against the ex-boyfriend, with whom she has three children.
Det. Pedro Perez was cited for conduct unbecoming an officer for violating department policy by engaging in a personal relationship with an alleged victim in one of his cases, failing to report the relationship to his superiors and using his work cellphone for personal reasons, according to his May 8 suspension memo. He was demoted to road patrol and suspended for three days.
Chief Alexander Rolle’s discipline for Perez, a married man, avoided hitting him with violating the department’s moral character standards policy, which would have triggered a Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) inquiry into whether Perez’s certification to be a police officer should be revoked.
But the case isn’t over. The ex-boyfriend who filed the Internal Affairs (IA) complaint, Julio Trejo, is now accusing the Homestead police of covering up for Perez by failing to adequately investigate.
Trejo has also filed complaints against Perez and Homestead Capt. Fernando Morales with the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s public corruption unit. Morales conducted the IA probe and concluded that Perez’s behavior did not warrant dismissal.
“I want them to review everything on how this internal affairs investigation took place,” Trejo said. “Homestead Police made a concerted effort to conceal criminal wrongdoing by Perez and maintain this matter administrative in nature.”
ABUSE OF POWER
Homestead’s investigation clearly found Perez abused his powers to arrest and charge Trejo, Lian Marie Sierra’s ex-boyfriend, with violating a temporary restraining order in July 2023. City records, including text messages between Perez, 41, and Sierra, 39, show that at the time the detective was constantly hitting on Sierra and that they shared a kiss at least once while he investigated Trejo.
But Trejo claims Capt. Morales refused to dig for more text messages between Sierra and Perez that would have shown the inappropriate relationship began before his ex-lover filed her restraining order. Trejo also accuses Morales and Rolle of giving him the run-around when he sought to have the IA findings reviewed by FDLE.
Morales, who is also the Homestead police’s spokesperson, did not respond to Florida Bulldog phone messages and emails seeking comment.
Perez declined comment. In a statement included in his personnel file, Perez didn’t appear remorseful about his behavior, saying that he “respectfully disagrees with the severity of the discipline being recommended” and that he conducted a “thorough, complete, and unbiased investigation” of Trejo and “assisted the victim in every way possible.”
Trejo, however, told Florida Bulldog, “Perez continued intimate relations [with Sierra] that he leveraged at the expense of my civil rights. There is clear evidence of official misconduct, and there may be elements for malicious prosecution.”
On May 29, 2023, Sierra obtained a temporary restraining order against Trejo by alleging he made death threats against her and her family following a dispute over his alleged refusal to drop off their three children with her relatives. She also accused Trejo of breaking into the backyard of their Homestead home after he had moved out, and that she feared for her life and the lives of her children, according to a petition filed in Miami-Dade County Family Court.
Sierra declined comment for this story, but Trejo admitted in an interview that they had been in a toxic relationship for more than a decade that ended last year. He denied threatening to kill her and her relatives.
SIERRA’S ACCUSATIONS
On June 14, 2023, Sierra accused Trejo of violating the temporary restraining order by sending her harassing texts, a Homestead police report states. She provided screenshots of two messages she alleged Trejo sent her from an unknown cell number. One called Sierra a “piece of shit for doing this to me,” and accused her of making up lies about Trejo to prevent him from seeing their children. The texter also wrote, “I’ve never wished bad on you, but after Father’s Day, I hope you [get] nothing but the worst.”
Sierra also provided footage from her doorbell camera showing a white Chevy Tahoe, the same model that Trejo owns, driving past her residence at 3:45 a.m. on a day the restraining order was in effect, the report states.
On June 27, 2023, seven days after being assigned the case, Det. Perez texted Sierra from his city-issued cellphone, but it appeared they had already had previous text communications on his personal device.
“New number?” Sierra texted. “My other phone,” Perez replied. “Work.”
Over the course of a three-week period, Perez and Sierra exchanged dozens of text messages on a daily basis. Some of the texts strongly hinted that the pair were attracted to each other. For instance, they texted each other on June 29, 2023, about how it was nice that they got to spend time together.
“You killed me tho,” Perez texted. “I killed you, how lol,” Sierra responded. “You know pleeeease, and you smelled great,” Perez texted back.
A few hours later the same day, Perez texted, “I think next time ain’t even gonna mention the kiss and just kiss you. Thoughts? Blink once for yes and twice for no.” Sierra responded with a winking face emoji.
On July 3, 2023, Perez followed up on his promise. After they had met on his break, he texted Sierra: “Glad we got that kiss out of the way. Hope it [was] to your liking, I definitely did.” Her reply: “It was to my liking.”
LOVEBIRDS DISCUSS ARREST
Two days after smooching, Perez and Sierra had a text conversation about when he should arrest Trejo. At the time, Perez had not uncovered any additional evidence to support her allegations that Trejo was indeed the individual who texted her or that he was behind the wheel of the Chevy Tahoe that drove by her house, Homestead police records show.
In response to Sierra expressing her frustration that Trejo had not been jailed yet, Perez texted: “You tell me if you want me to do it sooner. I was waiting because you told me to wait.” A few minutes later, he texted: “So do you want me to try to get him next Friday?”
Sierra replied: “Can you do it Friday morning [so] that way he misses his hearing and the judge will grant the [permanent] restraining order?”
She also appeared to be having second thoughts about getting romantically involved with Perez after finding out he was married. “I’m not okay with hanging out with married men,” Sierra wrote on July 10. “You’re cool and super easy to talk to, but I don’t want to get tangled.”
When she suggested they only be friends, Perez texted: “But my idea of being friends with you is just different than what you want so it’s just gonna frustrate us both lol.” He added, “I guess I was just chasing something that wasn’t there.”
On July 14, 2023, Perez arrested Trejo at the Lawson E. Thomas Court Center in Homestead after a judge extended the temporary restraining order for one year.
In early November, after a brief reconciliation with Sierra, Trejo filed the IA complaint against Perez. Trejo saw that she received a text message from Perez, and that a close friend of hers told him that the then-detective had been hitting on her, the IA report states. Trejo also discovered other texts between Sierra and Perez on an old iWatch that belonged to her that his son was wearing.
PEREZ ADMITS PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT
On Jan. 12 of this year, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office declined to move forward with the case against Trejo. “Despite having a good faith to file charges, the state does not believe we can prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt,” a close-out memo states.
The same day, Assistant State Attorney Jeremy Swartz, who was prosecuting the case against Trejo, informed Capt. Morales that he was dropping the case due to Sierra not cooperating and the Internal Affairs probe against Perez. Swartz told Morales “the apparent relationship between Perez and Sierra created issues if this case were brought to trial,” the IA report states.
However, Swartz said he did not believe Trejo had been “set up” by Sierra and Perez, the IA report states.
Four months later, on April 17, 2024 Perez provided a sworn statement to Morales admitting that he and Sierra developed a personal relationship, but he denied knowing her before she filed her complaint against Trejo last year.
During the interview, Perez also confirmed that he also used to own a white Chevy Tahoe, the same model vehicle that passed in front of Sierra’s house that she alleged was her ex-boyfriend’s. Perez claimed that he never drove his Tahoe in Homestead and that he sold the SUV around the same time he started investigating Trejo.
Perez also admitted that his conversations with Sierra were “more of a personal nature versus professional,” but that he didn’t feel he had to remove himself from the case, the IA report states. But, in hindsight, he should’ve told his bosses, Perez acknowledged.
“Det. Perez said he understood that the situation with Ms. Sierra created a problem for prosecutors,” the report states. “And that the situation would have been better if he would have turned over the case to another detective.”
TREJO SEEKS WATCHDOG HELP
Unsatisfied with the outcome of the IA probe, Trejo asked that Morales reopen the case and conduct further searches for more text messages between Sierra and Perez. He believes the texts would show they began their flirtatious interactions prior to her calling police on him, and that they conspired to build a case against him.
“Why didn’t they subpoena his personal cellphone provider?” Trejo told Florida Bulldog. “And what about the texts between them on the day I got arrested? Morales claimed those messages were archived and the police department’s IT department was not able to retrieve them.”
The Homestead Police Department public records section informed Trejo that he would have to request any other text messages from the phone carrier. And on May 28 of this year, Morales texted Trejo that he would not reopen the investigation.
“The case has been closed and appropriate action has been taken by Chief Rolle,” Morales wrote. “The entire case is being forwarded to FDLE Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Training.”
But a July 29 email, Erica Gaines, a manager with FDLE’s criminal justice professional division, informed Trejo that the commission could not open its own investigation because the Homestead Police Department did not sustain a violation of its moral character standards against Perez.
Meanwhile, Trejo’s complaints against Perez and Morales with the Miami-Dade ethics commission and state prosecutors remain ongoing.
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